Monday, 1 November 2010

Terry Pratchett Quotes

Before J.K. Rowland, Terry Pratchett was the best-selling British fantasy author of the 1990s. He's written more than 60 books (either by himself or in collaboration with a coauthor). In fact, while I was at the recent FMA conference I made a comment "There can only be... one thousand" at a reception,a and found that an Irish friend of mine was a fellow Pratchett-phile.

So imagine my enjoyment at finding out there's a repository of Pratchett quotes titled the Pratchett Quote File (you can also get it in a test file here). Here's one that struck home (note that the Unknown Wife and I just celebrated our 20th anniversary):

Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to followtheir own line of thought while at the same time listening to what theirwives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they couldbe challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vitaladditional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrasessuch as "and they can deliver it tomorrow" or "so I've invited them fordinner?" or "they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply." -- (Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant)

Unfortunately, skimming through the quote file just burned an hour and a half of my time. I guess I really don't want to start grading the 70 exams currently sitting on my desk (each of which has 10 pages of work in it). Unfortunately, I just gave the exam tonight, and I want to give them back on Wednesday (it's the drop date for the semester).